machineghost

This is a great topic. I’m definitely frustrated, especially because it’s not clear to me what I would do differently, even after emailing several departments to ask them what I should consider doing differently. The obvious thing to look at is one’s writing sample. But that’s not very helpful when one’s writing sample was looked upon favorably by one’s letter writers and, in my case anyway, the Eastern APA (poster). I think I would try to publish something in a good journal in the next year if I planned to try again. It’s not clear what else I could do. But I will probably just move on.

I’m curious as to when you heard back from Arizona. When did the two week countdown begin?

No, the emails (two) didn’t indicate that they were done with rejections. But I’m guessing that they aren’t, given how few people posted rejections.

I second metanoia’s reply, and would especially recommend NIU, as their success lately has been incredible (I say this as someone at another MA program where the placement has not been so great lately).

I’m always just pretty direct. Find out who the DGS is and send them a short email. In my experience, most people will get back with you pretty quickly.

If past years are any guide, they are sort of all over the place and pretty unpredictable. In general, though, it’s probably not sensible to be hopeful at this point.

Yes, especially if you are planning to apply out next year. I’ve emailed a few schools and about half of them responded and the information that I received was helpful, at least in one case.

If you like small towns, then I’d recommend applying to NIU. They have faculty working in the areas that you mentioned, and their placement has been incredible lately. Yes, my comment about DeKalb is that it’s a small town that is a couple of hours from any big cities. If I could do it all over again, I would go to NIU, if that’s any help. I went to another MA program that is also strong but the placement has not been very good the past few years for whatever reason.

Yeah it looks like they haven’t updated their website in a while.

Looks like they waitlisted 12 people last year.

While I agree with much of this post, I also disagree with quite a lot. You won’t have to master all of the secondary literature in some area over the course of a semester. That would be impossible! Leave that project for the three years that you are working on your dissertation. And it’s goung to be very rare indeed that you will be reading work in some other language unless you happen to specialize in an area where that is a requirement, which is very rare. And it will also be rare that your seminar papers are as good as your writing sample. People often use a good seminar paper as a good starting point for their writing sample. Don’t let this post scare you. Grad school is hard but it isn’t *that* hard.

It might be difficult to find an MA program that is strong in all of those areas. It might be helpful for you to rank your interests. If, for example, it is more important to you to be able to take seminars on Plato, Aristotle, and Kant than it is to find a place that has seminars on metaphysics or philosophy of religion, you’d likely find some programs more attractive than others. But the opposite would be true if you ranked your interests the other way around. Speaking from a placement perspective, NIU seems to be on fire lately compared to some other MA programs. On the other hand, you’d have to live in DeKalb, Illinois.

Actually, scratch that. I see that there are more than I originally thought.

It surprises me that there have only been a handful of rejections from USC on gradcafe so far. Typically, when rejections go out from a top 10 school, we will see 10-15 posted all around the same time, and where are the waitlists, one wonders? Maybe they will be personally emailed tomorrow or something. It strikes me as bizarre.

I had a similarly frustrating experience. I don’t understand why they can’t attach the letter either. Indeed, I don’t understand why programs feel the need to send letters from the dean. Why not just send an email to everyone who is rejected with a subject that says “Admisssions Decision: Rejected” with a body that includes one or two sentences like “lots of qualified folks applied, and we rejected most, including you. Best of luck in your future endeavors.” That’s all I need.

It is a good general rule of thumb to assume that if you haven’t been accepted or waitlisted (and both acceptances and waitlists have been reported on gradcafe), you will be rejected. This isn’t *always* true, but it will be true in the vast majority of cases.

This might be of use to you: https://philosophyadmissions.wordpress.com/predictions/ Based on past years, Arizona, UCSD, USC, and MIT ought to be any day now.

I felt the same way upon getting rejected from Brown, though it did not occur to me to eat a whole pizza. That might be a good tool to add to my toolset as approach a week where several schools to which I applied will likely be announcing their decisions.

I disagree. It is a hell of a life, to be sure, but it’s also a hell of a life working a job that you find soul-crushing and dull and imagining yourself doing that same job for 30 more years when you think there might be something else that you’d enjoy a great deal more. It’s perfectly reasonable to try it on to see if it fits. For me, it will allow me to go back into said job with the monkey off my back, allowing me to appreciate it a bit more and to know that academia wasn’t for me after all (assuming I end up back in software).

Congratulations!

I’m in a similar boat, but I’m even older. I worked as a software engineer for over a decade. I don’t know whether one’s age makes a difference but I do think that it would be frowned upon if you haven’t done much course work recently. For example, if you haven’t taken any philosophy courses in 15 years, that would almost certainly be looked upon unfavorably. But if you have, then I doubt it will matter much. A terminal MA is probably a good option for you if you haven’t taken philosophy courses in a while. That’s what I did, and you will also end up with better letters, a better sample, etc.

I assume that they are still in the process of sending out acceptances, since the person on Facebook received the email today. Good luck to you!

Someone claimed it in the Facebook group.

I’m finishing up an MA right now, so I might be able to help. With respect to (1), I think it’s fair to say that your professors will expect quite a bit more than your professors expect in undergrad. The quality of work that received an A in undergrad is not likely to receive an A in grad school, at least not at my school. That leads in nicely to (2), since adjusting to those expectations is one of the biggest challenges. Other challenges include the amount of time you will need to spend studying. It really is a full time job plus a lot of work on the weekends, at least for me. (3) and (4) are good questions. One thing that comes to mind that I learned to do early on is to write short summaries of the papers and books that I read, including the main arguments, putting them into standard form, etc. I found this useful for when I needed to speak about the arguments in seminars, since I would often have the page printed out and ready to refer to. It also helps you to remember the papers and books a bit better. It takes some time but is worth it. Also, if you plan to study analytic philosophy, I’d recommend a book called “Philosophy for Graduate Students” by Alex Broadbent. It’s a nice overview of the sorts of things you’ll be expected to know in many programs. Of course, there are other books that offer similar benefit to that one, but I found it useful. Good luck!

I worked as a software engineer for over a decade prior to entering a terminal MA. Having a viable backup plan has really made things easier for me. If I strike out this admissions season, I can go back into software, which is nice. You’d be in a similar boat, presumably, and that should give you lots of confidence that you can test the waters of academia at a terminal MA without worrying too much that you’re making a horrible decision. If you don’t like it, go back into engineering. If you do, well then apply to PhD programs. That, at least, is what I did.